“I refused to go to college because I wanted an education.” Gore Vidal

There is a vital need to re-introduce the independence of the scholar, scientist and expert, acknowledging that there are already a substantial number of such people within the academic nexus who against all odds have held to the highest qualities of scholarly integrity but whose valuable work is weighed down by the systemic bias towards various vested interests. Hence, the Muslim Faculty of Advanced Studies is intended as the foundation for a new community of independent scholars, students, members and fellows.

The Limits of Freedom

Ian Dallas

INTRODUCTION

The following lecture was given in Birmingham, England, this year, 1990, by Mr. Ian Dallas.

It is characteristic of this particular talk that the speaker touches upon a great many points of reference that all meet at tangent and thereby make connection to the central theme of the philosophy of FREEDOM AND ITS INTERRELATIONSHIP WITH THE PRESENT MONETARIST SYSTEM AND ITS MEANS OF CONTROL, IN POLITICAL TERMS, OVER WORLD POPULATIONS. This is a vast subject and has been lectured as well as written upon extensively by Ian Dallas. Nevertheless, this short talk can serve as a precis to many of his challenging and refreshing ideas.

Ian Dallas was born in Scotland and began his writing career as a playwright. As a contract writer for the BBC TV, he was responsible for a large number of plays and dramatisations. Within the last year, Mr. Dallas released his newest novel, THE TEN SYMPHONIES OF GORKA KÖNIG, published by Kegan Paul International of London. Most recently, Ian Dallas has completed his book on the study of WAGNER’S RING, which is expected to be released this summer.

Myth, Narrative and History

Part 2

Abdassamad Clarke

Myth in the Age of Technique

In order to grasp the nature of myth in our current age, we must take account of the advent of a new reality in the way of transacting-in-the-world which now dominates, informs, subordinates and mediates all others: the way of technique/technology. The essential import of this development is that all human engagement with lived experience is exposed to the ‘levelling’ and ‘standardisation’ which is ‘revealed’ through the indifferent and irresistible ‘pull’ of technique into the systems of rationality and efficiency which govern its own inherent logic. Continue reading 'Myth, Narrative and History – Part 2 – Abdassamad Clarke'»

Myth, Narrative and History

Abdassamad Clarke

Because of our ignorance of history and our ‘ulama’s ignorance of of history, certain events have come to assume mythic proportions. One of these is the event of Kerbala. The movement of this event-as-myth to the centre stage of Muslim discourse has resulted in a cynical view of Muslim power, and a defeatism that glorifies useless sacrifice. This myth serves a subordinate role in the global myth of the dominant technique/technology culture that strides the earth. It thus serves a very useful geo-political purpose for the power élite. In that culture of globalised warfare and total spectrum dominance, the technique of the creation of money from nothing is absolutely central. In ignorance of the power politics of the age, active Muslims are locked into a false struggle with local dictators. Primed with the myth of al-Ḥusayn, they are pre-configured to seek defeat. Moreover, as their understanding of power is false, even when they win it is a defeat. As the core community of mankind, it behoves the Muslims rather to turn to the primordial historical model of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his Companions, the people of Madina, both in the telling of his history and the transmission of his practice, the Sunnah. The transmitted practice alone, which is the Qur’anic revelation embodied, deals with the motor, the money nexus, that drives the global frenzy of the age. The sirah represents, contrary to the myth of Kerbala, a life-affirming and positive victory-oriented approach to life and to political power.

It is a significant honour to address the theme of Gestalt, of freedom, in the work of Ernst Jünger here in Euskalherria. The continuing struggle of the Basque nation for independence raises vital issues for all mankind in our time: issues which Jünger, in his long life, has never ceased to examine and illuminate. Here, it is not an academic matter, but a matter of life and death – if a methodology fails to result in the desired goal, it is the methodology that should be scrapped, and not the goal. Continue reading 'Ernst Jünger Symposium – Bilbao 1989 – Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi'»

An essay on Ernst Jünger’s concept of the sovereign individual

by Abdalbarr Braun

Ernst Jünger says in his acceptance speech for the prestigious Goethe prize in 1982, “I’ve had the experience that one meets the best comrades in no-man’s-land. I’ve always been pleased with my troops (Mannschaft) in war and my readership in peace. A hand that holds a weapon with honor, holds a pen with honor. It is stronger than any atom bomb, or any rotary press.” With these words Jünger bestows an honour on us, his readership. He equates us with his comrades-in-arms in times of peace, but is it a wonder after all? If you are a reader of Ernst Jünger, you must be in either one of two camps, those who consider his opus with genuine admiration or the detractors, those sceptics, “whose contribution does not equal to one blade of grass, one mosquito wing”. Continue reading 'WARRIOR, WALDGAENGER, ANARCH'»

A review by Dr. Ojembarrena – Former professor of Literature, University of Bilbao

Subtitled “on the politics of power,” this study in power provides a radical, exacting and unique visionary analysis of the present world-wide version of reality which allows the ruling elite to govern by processes which increase their exorbitant wealth, and at the same time systematically devastate Earth’s eco-system, subjecting the largest part of the world’s population to poverty and domination. Continue reading 'THE TIME OF THE BEDOUIN on the politics of power – Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi'»

At the heart of our dysfunctional financial system is a remarkably poorly understood fact. Private banks create the vast majority of the money supply – 97% according to most estimates. Not the Bank of England, nor the Government, nor any institution which could be viewed as democratically accountable or representing the public interest, but private banks.

Banks create money when they ‘extend credit’, to use the technical jargon. What this really means is making a loan or honouring an overdraft. When a bank makes a loan it simultaneously creates a deposit in the borrowers’ bank account. The bank does not take the deposit out of anyone else’s account. The balance that appears in your account is new money.

This is no more than simple double-entry bookkeeping. The bank has increased its assets because I now owe it money. It has also increased its liabilities by the same amount because my bank deposit is simply the money that the bank owes to me – a bank IOU if you like.

But unlike an IOU between me and you, scribbled on a piece of paper, this electronic Bank IOU is impersonalized. It is accepted by everyone else in the UK in payment for goods and services. This is because it also accepted by the government for taxes. This means everyone wants it because everyone can use it to make their most regular payments.

If you are finding it difficult to believe that banks create money so easily, by just typing numbers in to a computer, you are not alone. Policy makers and economists, including civil servants at the Independent Commission on Banking, have found it very difficult to accept. Banks are usually described as ‘financial intermediaries’, ‘recycling’ the deposits that we’ve put in them for safekeeping as loans. In fact, it’s the other way round. Bank loans create deposits. Banks are better described as ‘credit creators’ than intermediaries.